IT software and consulting company, Cenit is helping to boost resource efficiency in aviation by implementing additive manufacturing and bionic design in all phases of the aircraft lifecycle.

Participating in BionicAircraft, a European research project, Cenit is contributing its software expertise. The project, co-funded by the European Commission’s ‘Horizon 2020’ programme, aims to reduce and control emissions in the aviation industry. Incorporating additive manufacturing into production processes is seen as a key feature in this area.

Along with nine other international consortium partners, Cenit is working to develop technologies and concepts for additive manufacturing that enable environment-friendly end-to-end lifecycles in the aviation industry.

Aiming to achieve a significant simplification of product development for lightweight bionic structures using streamlined design methodologies, Cenit is addressing one of the most important potentials and challenges of AM. That is, creating entirely new types of components which cannot be manufactured using traditional methods.

“One of the main reasons why additive manufacturing has not yet had a major impact on aircraft manufacturing is the elaborate design process,” said Michael Schwartz, Manager for Innovative Aerospace Solutions at Cenit. “Since this is not yet automated, it must be carried out via a series of different software packages. Specialised software is also needed to process data for the 3D printing machines. During the design phase, engineers have to switch back and forth between different tools. This makes the process time-intensive, and that in turn makes it expensive.

“Cenit’s work thus far focuses on a major simplification of the design process. To achieve this, we are integrating all 3D print, design and data conditioning processes into a single toolset for automated bionic design. That way, we can help establish a consistent digital process chain.”

The individual components of the task field assigned to Cenit, along with Airbus, LZN and iLas, are the formulation of design guidelines for additive manufacturing, the development of 3D-CAD toolset for the use of CATIA in bionic design, and 3D print data conditioning.

Schwartz believes Cenit’s involvement in the project will benefit both parties. Cenit will improve as an enterprise, while the project, and aviation as an industry, will receive insightful contributions.

“3D printing technologies and bionic structures are a major enable in creating competitive, environment-friendly aircraft for the future,” added Schwartz. “We are proud that we can contribute to such an ambitious, cutting-edge project. Among other goals, we aim to achieve a reduction in overall development times for optimised 3D print components, as well as major weight-saving potentials for aircraft. These will lead to significant reductions in CO2 emissions throughout the entire service life of the aircraft.”

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